Tag Archives: Cooking Light

If it’s not obvious by now, I get a lot of my recipes from Cooking Light, and I have another review for a recipe from the magazine. When I think about comfort food, “healthy” isn’t the first word that comes to mind. However, at less than 300 calories per serving, Diner Meat Loaf “Muffins” from Cooking Light are a healthier alternative to traditional meat loaf. Equally important, these “muffins” are easy to make and delicious. This recipe is a regular in our house, and below I provided a review of the recipe including tips and substitutions.

Forgive me for the photos! Derek is off in California with the good camera, so these are from my iPhone.

The first step of the recipe involves sautéing chopped onion, oregano, garlic, and carrots. I didn’t have any carrots on hand, so I left them out. Zucchini or mushrooms would also be good substitutes for the carrots. Though I didn’t do it this time, this step is a great opportunity to amp up the veggies.

Next, the onion mixture is combined with ketchup, lean ground beef, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, 2 eggs, and crushed saltine crackers. Instead of saltine crackers, I use Italian style breadcrumbs. I also use only 1lb of beef instead 1.5lb. Ground turkey may be a good substitute for the beef.

After mixing everything together, spoon the meat mixture into a muffin pan and top with ketchup. Make sure that the cups are coated with cooking spray so that the “muffins” come out in one piece.

Simply bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

I served the meat loaf with boiled red potatoes and a side salad. It also pairs nicely with green beans and sweet potatoes.

The meat loaf “muffins” always come out moist and flavorful. They’re a great option for kids and “meat and potatoes” eaters. Hope you enjoy them!

As I mentioned in my Lightened Up Cobb Salad post, I don’t like wimpy salads. If I’m going to eat a salad as a meal it needs to be flavorful and filling. Last week I decided to try out a new dinner salad, and it was a scrumptious success! I made Cooking Light‘s Blackened Chicken Salad with Blue Cheese Vinaigrette. I reviewed my experience with the recipe, including any substitutions and tips I learned along the way.

When I first found this recipe in Cooking Light, I almost wrote it off immediately due to the length of the ingredients list.

But then I took a closer look at the recipe. The first 7 ingredients are part of a spice rub, and I already had all of the spices on hand. (Technically I used regular paprika instead of Hungarian sweet paprika, but it worked out fine.)

I thought the rub was flavorful and had the perfect amount of “kick” to it, but If you really don’t like spice, you may want to cut back on the red pepper. After mixing the spices together, I put the rub on the chicken breasts and cooked them on a grill pan. You could also use a regular grill.

It took about 10 minutes to cook the chicken.

While the chicken grilled, I put together the vinaigrette and salad.

I bought shallots and substituted red wine vinegar for white wine vinegar, but other than that, I had all of the ingredients used to make the vinaigrette. I followed the recipe and used blue cheese, but I think feta would work as well. I let Derek think it was impressive that I made the dressing, but it was super easy. He doesn’t have to know that though. 🙂

The salad portion consisted of half of a romaine heart and halved cherry tomatoes. After I let the chicken rest for 5 minutes, I sliced it and put everything together.

The salad was beautiful and delicious. It paired nicely with grilled Texas toast, but any crusty bread would be great, too.

The salad was really good and much easier to make than I expected. I tend to think that more ingredients= more time and difficulty, but I was definitely wrong with this one. Other than shallots and blue cheese, you probably have the ingredients for the spice rub and vinaigrette in your kitchen right now.

Happy Friday! I wanted to share this steak and asparagus stir-fry recipe that I mentioned in my weekly meal plan post. The recipe is from Cooking Light. Instead of coming up with new recipes, I will most frequently review recipes on Brown is the New Pink. I always learn something from the first time that I make a new recipe, so I hope information about my experience with the recipe will help you!

The first step in the recipe involves mixing ingredients for the sauce. I made a few changes with this step based on what I had in the house. I used chicken broth instead of stock, and I left out the ginger because it’s too expensive for me. The sauce still turned out great.

Whisking the sauce together.

Next, the recipe calls for browning boneless sirloin steak that has been cut into 1/4″ strips. Unfortunately, sirloin steak was not on sale at my grocery store, but I found some less expensive choice beef that was already cut into strips for stir-frying. Convenience for the win! After the beef is browned, which only takes about 1-2 minutes, the next step is stir-frying the veggies.

Stir-frying the asparagus and bell pepper.

The red bell pepper and asparagus go in first followed by the green onions. The sauce is added next. Finally, the beef goes back in at the end.

Putting it all together.

If you’re like me and want to make sure you’re cooking everything for the right amount of time, I suggest setting a timer for 10 minutes and watching your time throughout the whole process. For example, if I put the asparagus and bell pepper in the skillet at 10 minutes, I know to add the green onions at 8 minutes and the sauce at 7.5 minutes.

Sorry for the poor picture quality. It may not look it, but it was delicious!

It’s as easy as that.

Derek and I both LOVED this recipe. It will become a regular on our rotation. Derek even said it is one of the best things I’ve ever cooked. The recipe is easy and super fast. I chopped the vegetables in advance, so the whole recipe took me 15 minutes with about 10 minutes of actual cooking time. I served the stir-fry over jasmine rice that I microwaved while I was cooking. It all came together fast, and it was incredibly flavorful.

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About Me

Welcome to Brown is the New Pink!
My name is Ali Brown Pinkerton. I live in Indianapolis, IN with my husband Derek. I'm a medical social worker with my Master's of Social Work from UNC - Chapel Hill. Besides my interest in social justice, I love cooking healthy (and sometimes not-so-healthy) foods, running, reading, and traveling.